


Preservation

by Raynidreams



Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-24
Updated: 2012-11-24
Packaged: 2017-11-19 09:26:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 955
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/571758
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Raynidreams/pseuds/Raynidreams
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A look at Kara and Lee's relationship.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Preservation

**Author's Note:**

> Beta: with all my thanks to the lovely newnumbertwo 
> 
> /1 Written for the bsg_epics Pentathlon.

_"Why do you always frak it up?" he yells.  
  
She smacks him in the mouth as hard as she can. He punches her right back with just as much feeling. Then they drink and almost frak. It's how it works. The opposite relies on too much from each of them._  
  
***  
  
It takes weeks for him to open up to her, to let her see him. One person reaching out to another as they dance. In a world made of strangers, where isolation is the biggest killer, she has been his constant from the start. Not his father, HER.  
  
He loves her.  
  
And she responds, draws him in, and then throws it back in his face by sleeping with another. He can't allow that kind of hurt again. He just can't.  
  
Kara has many around her, they whom are her family - those whom she fights with. But she has her own world too, and sits in it separately. She connects to others as she desires: the taste of salt and the burn of the high; before placing a glass wall around herself again.  
  
Isolation is the key to moving on. The key to her survival.  
  
***  
  
He tries to manage, tries with others. He’s safe in the President's shadow – she sees good things in him. As does Dee. Dee praises his likeness to his father, likes his surface brightness, and admires the man he could be as he admires in her a sense of the same. Duty and order in chaos.  
  
But lurking, encroaching, Kara mourns another, and as much as she loves Lee, this is different. She loves, and is secure in how each lover and friend make her feel. It gives everyone a part but never the whole of her. She misses Sam and wants him.  
  
Lee confronts her about it. Confronts her about dead men and guilt. She wants sex and a distraction, but as always, he needs more. Eventually, she goes after Sam and she and Lee both hide. Others have always been a safe camouflage for his jealousy and her confusion. Until the camouflage comes off. Then there is no mockery, no CAG to Lieutenant, superior officer to pilot. She's not military and she is leaving and it all comes out.  
  
***  
  
They confess... and their love feels like no other thrill.  
  
It’s unity. It is safety. It's separate from everything else.  
  
But it's passing.  
  
For the morning comes and then the realization of its true impact crashes down upon her. If she’s to love him, then he needs everything and she isn’t only one thing. She’s a broken mirror with all the pieces reflecting back differently. Stick them together, and everyone will see the cracks.  
  
Kara rips herself away. There's freedom in destruction. Not that it is such to go to Sam. He takes the pieces she gives just as he keeps his own facets.  
  
Lee's never felt pain like it. Not since the last time they were parted.  
  
***  
  
Away, Lee makes progress with Dee, but his sense of himself returns all too easily for they are so alike. Soon, they fall in on themselves and he’s vulnerable. Best to hide. Best to distance. They understand one another too well. Passivity and finding issues in others is easier to tackle - it carries over even after he’s gained some command of himself again. After Kara comes back. After Lee is still angry and now Kara is impenetrable – her time away spent with someone who knew too much, saw too much, and made her feel too much for herself.  
  
They argue as it builds and builds. And it's fair to no one.  
  
She punches him. He hits right back. They Frak.  
  
But it’s much too complicated and far too close. Kara feels safe being married because he can never expect too much from her. It’s sex. He’s with another, she’s with another… but he wants more. Needs it to be two, not four.  
  
And Dee, like Lee, needs it to be the same. Too many people holding parts of her is hard to control and maintain.  
  
All Sam wants is for his wife to be happy. All they all want is to be happy.  
  
Kara and Lee part.  
  
But by now they are all cracking. Especially Kara. She spirals. And then she dies...  
  
In her wake, Lee and Sam finally understand one another. Dee pulls away from Lee by pulling herself in. She understands too.  
  
And by the time Kara returns, everything is different. It’s never the same. She’s been broken and brought back changed. And Lee's no longer needy, for he's found some measure of himself without her there. Discovered what it was within himself that he needed to find.  
  
It’s not just them, for everything is changed, everything ends, and without any purpose. They lose Dee and then they partly lose Sam.  
  
Death takes them apart, piece by piece, as it rebuilds them.  
  
In the end, it’s no longer,  _“Why do you always frak it up?”_  with her fist in reply saying,  _“Why do you always think it's everyone else who needs to be fixed?”_  It's become,  _"Because I'm Lee. And you're Kara. And the rest of it isn't worth a damn."_  
  
They know nothing of the whole truth, but they both know it's who they are.  
  
They touch again, and it’s sweet.  
  
To stand at the last, where he's fine, no demands, no self-preservation. He opens up fully, without needing to contain her. He has no wish to live within her, and she therefore has no reason to lash out. And this time when she goes, he understands it’s not because of him. It’s because it's who she is.  
  
And she wants to be with him.  
  
Just as he never forgets.  



End file.
